Oh decisions, decisions, decisions...

Just before class really started on the 13th, the overall vibe was a cross between worry and ‘what happens, happens’. However, it was quick to take a turn for the worst when we could actually see by how Professor K was acting that we weren’t going to like what we were going to see and I was seriously expecting the worst of the worst failing grades. Nobody was really clear on how his grading ways were and the exam wasn’t exactly something, I’m sure, many of us felt genuinely optimistic about. Though I passed, it just wasn’t okay with me and disappointment ran high in the classroom. Just then Professor K threw an idea at us: we could freely decide the format of the next exam as well as left it up in the air with however we felt was a reasonable enough way to boost up our scores a little more. It was a proposal that he would have to agree with and with that, he sat back and let us take over, manage ourselves and the given task at hand. Looking around at whoever wanted to put in their two cents first, it was obvious that some people were doing the whole ‘you first..no, you first’ thing but when everybody finally spoke up, I was worried. So many people, so many ideas, impossible to comprehend each one individually with the way it was all thrown out there.

There wasn't much order initially because many just had so much to say while others may have faded into the background, taking on the avoidance-method to dealing with such a presentation of decision-making. It was pretty funny how it was all for the taking, everybody had let it all go while the professor just sat there watching it all take place. After all, how possible is it to just step in the middle and expect to restore anything to a calm way of negotiating whatever was up for negotiation. Of course, in due time, we’d all have to come to some sort of an agreement by the time class was over but at the rate we were going, we'd need some major leadership to help come to terms with anything. It seemed like two classmates, Abe and Julian, figured that enough was enough and took it upon themselves to bring some order to all of this, taking on the roles of compromising mediators and making little notes here and there of all that seemed logical for the professor to consider, which was just what we needed with time running out. While everybody was pretty aggressive and making sure their point was gotten across, it was nice for some hope for mediation and soon enough we were actually getting somewhere when we narrowed it down to three suggestions we’d all (finally!) come to a consensus on, deciding on an extra-credit assignment, a curve and the lowest of our two exam grades would be dropped as the ultimate reasonable package deal and we hoped it would sit well with Professor K at the end.

Through that whole ordeal, I feel like, as somebody who’s not necessarily aggressive, I wanted to just let everybody else talk it out and pull the avoidance-card because I truly felt like we were getting nowhere fast but decided to turn to compromising and collaborating instead since we all were really in this together and this was just as important to me as it was to the rest of the class. Just when I thought everybody was on the same page, then came the process of deciding upon the format of our next exam and we had a reenactment of what had happened just seconds before, everybody with their own idea in mind and only one conclusion to come to. I felt as though, for a moment there, I had gone back to my avoidance-mentality but eventually pushed that aside and took part in collaborating with classmates and compromising until everybody had finalized a decision, a test format identical to the one just prior except the essay would be made optional as a way to rack up some more points.

It was a nice change from how things started up because I could see people gradually being brought together, those who wanted a completely spiced-up format and those who wanted the format to stay the same minus the essay. Looking back on it, I think we should’ve appointed mediators from the get-go instead of waiting for a sign that everything would be going downhill quickly and then turning to them for help. Either that or we could’ve turned to the professor giving us a few options we could vote on and then just go by the show of hands who was on board and whoever wasn’t, we could calmly address their concerns. Then again, we could’ve gone off of the priorities of the group: who wanted to accomplish what? Did their initial priority lie in results or actually becoming knowledgeable, taking something from the exam and its material? I feel as though with any of these, we would already be able to have a general idea of who wants what and hopefully, it’d all be conducted in a calm manner where it wouldn’t take aggression to accomplish anything.

Pebbles' eggs-cellent legacy will live on.

So coming into class on the 27th, I was really at a loss as to what to expect since just days before, we were told of an in-class assignment to be conducted that was not to be missed. Needless to say, I was interested and looked forward to seeing just what the professor had in store for us. Just then, I took note of what was sitting on the desk: a package of drinking straws, a carton of eggs and a roll of masking tape. The first thought that shot through my head was ‘I think I’ve seen this before and from what I didn’t miss, things got interesting yet messy’. I had an idea as to what was going to be going on because just years back, I caught some children’s show on TV where students were instructed to build somewhat of an outer-shell of an egg so that, when dropped from a height, it would be the straw protection-device that was banged up rather than the egg itself. Immediately, when I had seen the set-up we’d be working with to build, what I assumed would be what I saw on TV that day, I started thinking back to what kind of design actually kept the egg safe and sound with those students and hoped my memory was fresh enough to draw it up on paper and then actually execute it.

After we were shown a quick little diagram of what it means to plan and then bring something from being on paper to life, the overall concept of this activity was explained and the group and I got to work. If at all, the group effort mattered more than the overall outcome because if we could’ve put several brains with several ways of creating and thinking together, we were bound to come up with something efficient and effective eventually. We collaboratively knew that the single purpose was to protect the egg yet still keep it remotely visible to ensure we wouldn’t be trying to cheat our way to a victoriously-alive egg. So we each started by just throwing ideas around in regards to what would keep the egg centered so that our little contraption was what suffered a blow from the ground while the egg sat comfortably inside.

Clearly we knew what we wanted and how we wanted to get there yet now it was only a matter of getting there without any little bumps along the way. As told to do so, we’d assigned tasks to each of the group members, selecting a leader, somebody to draw up a sketch of what it was we had in mind for our protection device and then for somebody to actually drop the egg as we all kept our fingers crossed our egg, that we named Pebbles instead of, say, Omelet, wouldn’t plunge to its death. Assigning titles to group members didn’t really make as much of a prominent difference as maybe it would’ve been in some other scenario because nobody really took the time to lead among others as we all contributed equally to what we felt would be best, taking turns drawing up a little sketch that the “sketcher” then drew up on a separate sheet of paper as our end-goal of what our creation would be, fool-proof and guaranteed to work. We were each able to kind of, picture the straws and amount of tape we had to make use with and came with this, sort of, mental image as to how the egg would settle in and if we could actually bring this plan to life.

It all seemed well and great, we were all genuinely confident about our design, which started off as a cube with straws acting like the fencing, an itsy bitsy barricade, around the egg while it was cradled in the very middle by pieces of taped straws. Ready to start building, a member of our group through another idea out there that we could’ve used as a backup plan but since we had already come up with what we felt was a surefire source of success, we put that on the backburner and started building our little boxed contraption. It wasn’t until we had gotten about half-way through, maybe even less, that we realized time was running out and we were getting nowhere fast. Just then, with probably like a minute or so left to spare before time was up, we quickly switched over to the second-best thing we could’ve done, keeping the egg enclosed in something shaped like a barrel made out of the straws. At first when the idea came up, we the majority of us were kind of turned off by it just because it didn’t seem like something that would fully keep the egg in one piece without something or other cracking or breaking with the impact possibly being stronger on such a design than had we gone with something cube-ish. Rationalization had gone down the drain and we were working against time by that point; taping and snipping the straws away as quickly as we could and hoping that the egg would, in fact, be as visible as it should’ve been, we had eventually made something out of the contraption and went up to try out the ultimate test. Unfortunately, we’d gotten disqualified since Pebbles wasn’t as exposed to the world as she should’ve been. Regardless, we were given a chance and in due time, Pebbles had a life well-but-short-lived as the egg fell to the ground and broke instantly.

Despite the outcome, I felt that our group had worked wonderfully with each other, each member doing his/her job in bringing something new to the table and sharing their thoughts on what would be effective and what should’ve just been left behind and forgotten. Though, I felt that maybe the ideas we came up with sounded better and looked better when we’d mentally drew them up and looked great on paper but in the end, something other would’ve been better of an idea but no matter what, it was truly an experience to remember. All in all, we had a great objective, a great plan we’d follow through with to fulfill our goal even though it hadn’t worked out well as the egg didn’t live on.